Resident Life

Salary/Benefits

Northwestern residents are fortunate to have the highest resident salaries in Chicago.

Stipend 2016-2017

PGY 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $58,025

PGY 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $60,315

PGY 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $62,347

PGY 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $65,869

PGY 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $68,530

PGY 6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $70,652

PGY 7+. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $73,394

Residents also have a complete range of premier benefits, including health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield. They also have access to all employee benefits of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, including special hotel, entertainment, and restaurant rates. Feinberg Psychiatry residents are given new personal iPads when they enter the program.

Vacation

Residents are allotted three weeks vacation in the PGY-1 year and four weeks annual vacation for PGY-2 through PGY-4 years. Residents may choose to use one of their four weeks for conference attendance. Residents who are presenting their work at conferences do not have to use their vacation time.

Maternity/Family Leave

Northwestern’s Psychiatry Program is very family-friendly. Half-time training is available after December of the PGY-2 year.

Education Stipends

Northwestern residents have numerous options for funding educational travel. Each resident receives a $150 Education Stipend annually to use on any educational purchase. If a resident is presenting his/her work at a conference, the options are:

A Goldberg Family Fund stipend of up to $1,000 per year per resident, from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

A Department Trainee Travel Fund stipend of $250-$500.

Housing/Transportation

Chicago has wonderful public transportation – a third to a half of our residents do not have cars when they are here. We have a free shuttle from our department building to the VA, and every other rotation site is on campus, within a few block radius.

Housing options are incredibly varied and affordable for such a lively urban area. Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and residents have many choices – some residents like living in the Streeterville or Gold Coast neighborhoods, near the Department and Hospital –between Michigan Avenue and the Lake, with loads of restaurants, fitness centers, and shopping. Some residents choose to live in the Near North area – Lincoln Park, Lakeview/Wrigleyville, Andersonville, and Lincoln Square, to name a few. There is also the South Loop area, near the Museum Campus and Millenium Park. For those residents who want a more suburban feel, Oak Park/River Forest and Evanston provide environments of tree-lined streets and gracious homes – 30-60 minutes from the hospital by public transport, 20-30 minutes by car.

A day in the life of our Psychiatry Residents!

“I moved to Chicago in Summer 2017 - a wonderful time to become acquainted with the city and all that summertime Chicago has to offer: music festivals, beaches, rooftop bars, sidewalk cafes, the lakeshore trail, and much more. As an incoming PGY1, my first task was to find a place to live within walking distance of my new place of work, and I was happy to find a plethora of housing options. As a Northwestern resident, all of my clinical rotations are located in essentially two places: Northwestern's McGaw Medical Center and the Jesse Brown VA hospital. McGaw is located in the bustling Streeterville neighborhood tucked between busy Michigan Avenue and the shore of Lake Michigan. The JB-VA is located in the Illinois Medical District and accessible via free shuttle from McGaw.
At Northwestern, we start our PGY1 year with all 6 months of "off-service" rotations clustered together: 3 months of general internal medicine (or pediatrics), 2 months of neurology, and 1 month of emergency medicine. Naturally, work schedules vary by rotation. On the medicine service, I would wake up around 5:45 and walk to work by 6:30 to prepare for morning rounds at 8:30am. Working at an academic tertiary hospital means we learn to care for a complex patient population; this experience is incredibly formative and establishes a critical foundation of medical knowledge. For my neurology training, I'm currently rotating on the consult service at the VA hospital. After taking the VA shuttle, my work day starts around 8:30 in preparing for morning rounds at 9:30 or 10:00am. Everyday I have the opportunity to evaluate and diagnose a variety of new neurological problems, some of which overlap with psychiatric problems. In the ED, there is no typical day, and the variety of patient complaints kept me on my toes throughout every shift. On each of these services, I've had the opportunity to formulate my own assessments, but always felt strong support from my seniors and attendings when the situation gets complicated. It's been less than 3 months and I've already learned a tremendous amount.
My co-interns and I are especially looking forward to Christmas 2017, for obvious reasons, but also because December 26th marks the beginning of our psychiatry orientation, and for the rest of PGY1 we will be training on psychiatry services and attending weekly didactics with the PGY2's, 3's, and 4's. Can't wait! The trainees, staff, and faculty of the Psychiatry Dept are a special group of people, and they have been consistently welcoming to me and my co-interns. I've been a psychiatry resident for less than 3 months, and I've already gotten to know many of the more senior residents in the program at events like our periodic informal "drinks with shrinks," the PGY1 Welcome Pizza Party, and Dr. Anzia's famous summer BBQ.
Personally, I'm also looking forward to exploring new research opportunities within the department, with the hopes of joining a research team and working toward my goal of becoming a physician scientist.
What does this all mean for you? It means that as a Northwestern resident, you can get top-notch psychiatry training and work at a world-class medical center, all while living in a bustling global city - but what makes Northwestern a truly wonderful place is the people you meet and work with on a daily basis. I'm continuously impressed and thankful for the warm, generous, and gifted professionals I have the privilege to learn from and work alongside. Visit Northwestern Psychiatry and you'll see what I'm talking about!”

Gene Cozza

“I'm currently a second-year resident on our inpatient unit, the Stone Institute of Psychiatry (SIP). This is my second time on service, and it's even more fun than the first! SIP is where you'll get your core exposure to acute psychiatric crises of all kinds. When on service, I usually get up around 5:30 or 6:00am, enough time to make breakfast, work out, watch some TV, and maybe iron a shirt or two. I live right by the hospital, so I leave around 8:00am to show up and chart round on our patients, and learn about anybody new who came in overnight. When my attending arrives at 9am, we and the medical students discuss any events that happened overnight and any planned changes for the day, before leaving the team room to go see our patients. At 10:45, we break to start interdisciplinary rounds with the nursing staff and social workers, and go over our plan for the patients. Usually we're done rounding at that time, so the rest of the day is ours to finish notes, call collateral, or call the occasional consult. A lunch break with your two co-residents on SIP is also a must! The medical students are there to help you out, and are always available for opportunities to teach. Our patient load is relatively light (capped at six), and quite diverse, ranging anywhere from 18 to geriatric patients, with any number of complex disorders - it's always an interesting day. On Wednesdays, I round quickly in the morning before heading off to full-day didactics, where I can relax and catch up with my class (and learn!), as we have lectures ranging from basic psychopathology to the beginnings of psychotherapy. Either way, I'm generally done by 4:30 or 5:00pm, which leaves me plenty of time to start making dinner while my girlfriend, a neurology resident, is finishing up her day. After she gets home, the two of us will talk or watch Netflix over dinner, or we may even have time to catch a movie at The Music Box up on Southport. Then the two of us will tuck in early so that she can get to morning signout, and so I can enjoy the sunrise over a cup of coffee. Occasionally the workday will go longer if I'm on short call, but it's hard to mind it - our crisis workers are excellent, both at their jobs and also to talk with! Most weekends I'll have 1 or 2 days off, which are reserved either to hang out with my girlfriend (if she's off), or for my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game, which I've been playing with my fellow Feinberg graduates since we were M1s. All in all, I've loved every single day of this residency, and I couldn't imagine any better people - co-residents and faculty - to share it with!”

Matt Koscica

“I can't believe I am already three months into my PGY-4 year - time really does fly when you are having fun. Given that this is my last year of training, I want to squeeze as many educational and clinical experiences into this last year as possible... and with the ample elective time our program allows, I am able to do just that. I got a taste of neuromodulation as an intern on the inpatient psychiatry unit and I found the treatment modality so fascinating (and effective) that I knew I wanted to gain some expertise and become certified in ECT at some point in my training. Every morning, between 6:30-6:45am, I meet one of the neuromodulation attendings in the PACU and we round on patients, discuss their cases, and then administer the treatments. One of the best parts of ECT is the direct supervision and teaching from an attending for a good part of my morning every morning. We also work with medical students who are rotating in psychiatry. It is a great opportunity to educate budding physicians about the efficacy of ECT and help to destigmatize it at the same time. We are usually finished with ECT treatments by about 10am, depending on the number of patients. After this, I will see my outpatients in clinic and see ECT consults throughout the day as they come in. As the ECT consultant, I have the privilege of seeing the sickest patients in the hospital. The best part is that I get to see them get better in a matter of a few weeks. I have seen multiple cases of catatonia and treatment-resistant mania and I have seen the patients rapidly improve with ECT; it is incredible. I am usually done with this by 2pm, at which point I have a few hours to catch up on reading and study for the PRITE. I usually leave clinic around 4 or 4:30 pm and head downstairs to pick up my two-year old daughter from daycare. That's right, one of the Northwestern Daycare facilities is located on the first floor of the office building where my clinic is, so it's very convenient. And, as a resident, I get a discount! After picking up my daughter, we drive home to our new neighborhood, University Village, which is a small, quiet area on the border between Pilsen and the South Loop. Not only is rent way more affordable than Streeterville (we used to live across the street from the hospital), but also, it is quiet, peaceful, and full of little parks for my daughter to enjoy! We get home around 5 or 5:15 and then my husband or I make dinner. Hopefully our daughter eats it. Then it's bath time and bedtime! We trade off putting our daughter to bed around 8pm and then I usually fall asleep between 9 and 10pm so I can get enough sleep to do it all again. Despite the early mornings and longer hours than other electives, ECT has been one of the most intellectually stimulating and rewarding electives I have done.”

Penelope Libeu

“Two months into PGY3 year, I have rearranged the furniture in my new office twice, found the requisite stash of saltines and graham crackers in the clinic, and developed a healthy dread of checking my voicemail inbox. Yes, I am now fully immersed in the outpatient world, where I will reside for all of third year. I have two days of resident clinic, with patients for whom I am the sole provider (both terrifying and exciting). Aided by weekly meetings with my therapy and med management supervisors, I am gradually learning to sit with the anxiety of having 30-some patients floating freely out in the world.
We all [PGY3s] have two half-days of specialty faculty clinics - I am in neuropsychiatry and women’s mental health clinics for the first half of the year, and treatment-resistant mood and first-break psychosis clinics the second half. In these specialty clinics, I see patients independently, staff with the attending, and read up on niche topics like placentophagia. I also spend one day a week in the VA’s methadone/suboxone clinic, getting valuable exposure to addiction psychiatry and perusing the latest offerings of the retail store in my down time. On Wednesdays, our entire residency enjoys a protected didactic day, a mid-week decompression for which we are all grateful.
Most days I am out of the office by 5 or 6pm, and with the bulk of my weekend call mercifully behind me, I have never been more free to enjoy all that Chicago has to offer. During the fair-weather months I play in a low-key, no-pressure, skills-optional adult soccer league (I heavily recruit new interns; be prepared), during the unfair-weather months I work on my fingertip strength at indoor climbing gyms, and year-round I eat hot dogs. I have been in Chicago for the past 6 years, lived in 4 different neighborhoods, escorted countless visitors to The Bean, and I am still finding new things to love about this city every day (hint: mostly hot dogs).”